


Prelude

by orphan_account



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Multi, Raven-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 19:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In the end, Charles and Erik had been right, and both of their dreams had come to existence





	Prelude

In the end, Charles and Erik had been right, and both of their dreams had come to existence. Acceptance, for mutants, and peace between them and the humans. It wasn’t perfection - it couldn’t exist - and perhaps, perhaps that’s where they both had been wrong.

 

“End”, of course, was a relative word, and this one in particular applied to none of the men. Raven applied it to herself, now, wanting to believe that at least this - their reality - would be eternal. 

 

“You’ve become too dramatic in your old age, Mystique,” Logan had said once. She had laughed, then, and even agreed, but… 

 

But she would live longer than any of them, except Logan, so it was only natural that she’d started to see the end of her road long before people usually did. It was a matter of proportion, really. 

 

It saddened her that Charles’ and Erik’s ends had already come and passed, so many years before. 

 

A lot of things saddened her, actually.

* * *

When Rogue’s and Logan’s baby was born, Raven felt that something in him was different. It took some years for her to understand why. As it turned out, it wasn’t so much difference that she’d felt, but familiarity.

The child was a telepath. 

Raven left the Xavier institute for some years after that.   
  
  
  
  


_ “The called ‘Flight or fight’ reaction is a physiological reaction, processed by the sympathetic nervous system in a situation of threat…” _

  
  
  
  


_ “Some of us are trying to have fun, Charles.” _

  
  
  
  


_ “What  _ is not _ fun about the nervous system, Raven?” _

  
  
  
  


Flight or fight. She had already fought so much…

She traveled, met new humans and mutants, helped people, taught people things she knew. 

When she came back, she asked Liam to stay out of her head. That’s the same order she’d given Jean, before, and even Emma, many, many years before. 

Perhaps that was a mistake, but…

But doing otherwise would have felt too much like a betrayal. Another betrayal.

* * *

One day, they found a boy who’d been tortured. A human, tortured by mutants. Jean had said that he was so angry, so bent on wanting revenge…

 

Then Mystique took him in, and taught the boy everything she knew about how defending oneself. And then - then she told him a story about another boy who’d lived before, who’d been gifted by anger many things…

 

“But, in the end, anger can take away things you already have. The greatest of them, humanity.”

* * *

When she got really senile, Raven started to tell the children their story. If she could still change forms, she would have. If only - if only to listen their voices again.

Every time, she wondered what was her place in all of that. 

Perhaps, she concluded, having fought for one cause, while hoping for the other granted her that. Maybe there was a God, out there, somewhere, who’d looked at her and decided that she deserved that - be it out of malice or benevolence.

“But I don’t understand, Miss Raven, why did Professor X tolerate Magneto,” a child - tiny thing, really - asked one day.

“I wouldn’t call what they had ‘tolerate’, because it was so much more than that” she answered and raised one eyebrow. Some of the older children snickered, getting her meaning. “What he tolerated were Magneto’s actions, because… ”

Sometimes she changed the names and the end of their story. Sometimes she gave them happy endings. 

The children thought she was definitely losing her mind - “too old, and she fought in the Great War, what did you expect?”

But in every occasion, in every version of her story, there was one line that she kept only to herself.

... the only things that last forever are ideas and dreams, and, because of that, Charles and Erik will be the closest to eternal that any of us can be. I have made sure of that.


End file.
